Since 1994, the Darwin Awards have offered a sick annual hall of fame for
those who died in exceptionally stupid ways. Here are some of the weirdest
'winners'

It started in 1985, or thereabouts: smart-aleck citizens of what would one day be called the internet collecting stories of deaths so staggeringly stupid that the victims were said to have contributed to human evolution by 'self-selecting' themselves for extinction.

And for two decades now the Darwin Awards have recorded these bizarre, tragic or downright silly demises.

In recent years, they have introduced stricter criteria for making sure a story really happened.

The early history of the Darwin Awards is littered with junk entries – urban legends, fake stories, or true ones from different points in history.

But one award is marked “confirmed true”: the tale of two pilots found in the wreckage of their plane “partially clothed” with one of the seats in “full aft reclining position.”

A report from the US National Transportation Safety Board said: “Examination of the individuals’ clothing revealed no evidence of ripping or distress to the zippers and belts.”

It went on blame the deaths on “the pilot in command’s improper in-flight decision to divert her attention to other activities not related to the conduct of the flight.” The Darwin Awards had been born with a bang.

1995

James Burns, 34, of Michigan, USA, died while attempting to repair his truck from underneath while it was still in motion.

Local newspapers reported that Burns had asked his friend to drive the truck on a highway while he clung to its undercarriage in an ill-fated attempt to work out the source of a funny noise it kept making.

1996

This year’s award top went to a Polish farmer, Krystof Azninski, who “staked a strong claim to being Europe’s most macho man by cutting off his own head.”

According to Reuters reports, Mr Azninski and his friends, who had been drinking, decided to strip naked and engage in a contest of masculinity. They started by hitting each other over the head with frozen turnips, but when one man cut off his own foot with a chainsaw, Azninski felt compelled to respond.

One of the men was quoted as saying: "It's funny, because when he was young he put on his sister's underwear. But he died like a man."

1997

To Holland, where a group of employees on a company trip provided decades worth’ of warning for unruly children to keep their extremities inside the vehicle.

Two men had their heads out of the window, singing in the wind, when the bus entered a viaduct. The chauffeur said he had not locked the window because he did not think adult passengers would be stupid enough to need it.

1998

In Akron, Ohio, 23-year-old Michael Gentner is said to have swallowed a five-inch-long live fish on a dare. When he began to choke on it, friends phoned an ambulance, but only said their friend had ‘eaten some fish’. Paramedics were surprised to find its tail flapping in his mouth.

Deputy Police Chief Michael Matulavich said he would probably not charge Gentner’s three friends. “I don’t know what you’d charge them on. If I dare you to jump off a bridge and you do it, and you’re 23 years of age, you’re stupid,” he told reporters.

1999

September 1999 saw conflict in Jerusalem of an unusual nature, or so the Darwin Awards claim. Israel’s government switched from daylight savings time a year early to accommodate pre-sunrise prayers, while the Palestinian Authority refused to live on “Zionist time”.

A group of Palestinians attempted to synchronise the detonation of two car bombs in the city. But the timers had been set on Palestinian time while the drivers were running on Israeli time. The bombs exploded an hour early, killing both.

2000

In Houston, Texas, a 19-year-old man named Rashaad died attempting to play Russian roulette with a semi-automatic pistol instead of a revolver.

This story has had an unpleasant afterlife as a racist meme – just tell the joke about whichever minority you hate, and laugh at their stupidity.

2001

In Oregon, USA, a man lost control of his truck and crashed it into a utility pole carrying high voltage power lines.

Later, he was found lying face-down beside his vehicle with a pair of pruning shears in his hands. Police speculated that he had reached up to clip the sparking cable lying across his truck.

2002

A Wisconsin man had a longstanding erotic game with his wife where she would place the barrel of an unloaded shotgun against his scrotum and he would tell her to pull the trigger.

This time, the imminent arrival of one of his wife’s friends seems to have made them rush, because the gun was loaded. The man survived, earning a rare Living Darwin Award for his self-exclusion from the human gene pool.

2003

A British woman, whose name has been removed from the Darwin Awards website at the request of her family, died attempting to smoke a cigarette out of the passenger door of a National Express coach moving at 60mph. The woman had reportedly grown desperate for a smoke during the long journey south from Glasgow.

2004

An Italian named Fabio had quit his job as an ostrich farmer to drive trucks, and in his spare time built his own spy gadgets.

In a pub with friends, he produced his latest invention: a single-shot pistol cleverly concealed as a pen. To prove it was worked, he pointed it at his head and clicked the button. It did.

2005

A mugger in Bloemfontein, South Africa, is said to have climbed into a tiger cage while trying to escape the authorities. Taking flight from a victim who screamed, he scrambled up a fence without realising that the other side was a ten meter drop into the animals’ habitat.

2006

A 33-year-old man was found stabbed to death in his own house in Leicester, with no indication of a struggle and no suicidal tendencies.

But an inquest solved the mystery: ‘Darren’ had bought a new jacket which he believed was stab-proof, but he had wanted to test its abilities.

2007

As we get closer to the present day, the Darwin Awards get more reliable. This one was given retrospectively to a death in 2004 which took some time to explain.

Michael Warner, 58, with a history of alcoholism, regularly got drunk by enema because a throat infection made it painful to drink them. But alcohol delivered rectally is more potent, so the two 1.5 litre bottles of sherry he consumed that night were more than enough to kill him.

Adelir Antonio de Carli was a Catholic priest in Brazil – an outspoken critic of human rights violations by the police, and an experienced sky diver. To raise money for charity, he readied his parachute, helmet, GPS, food, water and thermal suit and took to the sky in a chair attached to 1,000 helium balloons.

The only problem was that he had not learned how to use his GPS device. After rising to 6,000 metres, he made a telephone call in which he asked for help with the device. None was given. Nine days after lift-off, the Brazilian Navy abandoned its search.

Two months later part of the priest’s body was found by an on oil rig support crew 100km out to sea. The Darwin Awards declared this a ‘double Darwin’, since the celibacy of Catholic priests already removes them from the evolutionary stream.

Father de Carli lifts of on April 20, 2008

2009

In South Carolina, USA, a man spray-painted his face to disguise himself during a robbery – and then died from the fumes.

Michael Gregory Thomas, 23, and Thomas James, 24, robbed a convenience store at gunpoint. But despite clear labels which said it should not be allowed to contact the skin or the eyes, Mr James spraypainted his face gold. Some time after the robbery he stopped breathing.

Planking, in case you didn’t know, is a craze where people take photos of themselves lying flat as a board in unusual locations.

David Tyrrell, a committed plankster from Queensland, said the man was not representative of the planking community: “Those guys would be a minority – the people that do something stupid, like a traffic light.”

2012

This year’s award went to Gary Allen Banning, a 43-year-old man who accidentally drank from a jar containing gasoline and then smoked a cigarette.

Mr Banning was at a friend’s apartment when he mistook a salsa jar full of for a drink. It’s not as if he didn’t notice – he quickly spat it out – but he didn’t realise the gasoline had gotten on his clothes. The poor man burst into flames.

“The death of a man who fell down an elevator shaft at Tampa International Airport last year was ruled accidental – if one considers forcing open the elevator doors, jumping toward the cables, and wrapping your arms and legs around them to slow your descent ‘an accident’.”

Chad Wolfe, 31, arrived at the airport with his girlfriend only to be found dead at the bottom of the shaft the following morning. Security camera footage showed him drinking from what appeared to be a mini bottle of liquor. Another camera shows him trying to climb a small tree.